Gregg Araki’s Kaboom

Maybe no one watches enough pornography to understand what this movie was trying to do. I mean, people know pornography. People know Ds in Vs action. People know Ds in As action and Ds waggling and bumping into and rubbing up against other Ds. Or multiple Ds being eaten after having served a brief tour within various As. Or possibly Vs grinding out on other Vs or maybe a solitary V existing without any stimulation at all (yeah I don’t get it either). Or a V stimulated by her own animal. Or a D being massaged with a foot or stocking. Or a D being prodded and berated by a smoking woman. Or a V disguised in a whipped cream beard. Or a D cumming into a midget’s derby hat while calling him a “very small cowboy” and asphyxiating an illegal alien with your grandmother’s nylon. Yeah, people know that side of pornography.

But what people no longer consider is the narrative of pornography. Maybe that is because narrative has been obliterated by pornographic websites that attempt to distill a film’s essence into a short, thirty second clip you watch over and over while choking yourself with a phallic vegetable. For these films the narrative is the act itself, the violence itself, the progression itself of this distribution of this meat touching that meat. By progression I mean to say the narrative is the order in which Vs are slurped and Ds eaten and rammed and so forth. By violence I mean to say the narrative is also replaced by genre – it is a narrative of FISTING or MILF or PRE-TEEN or DONKEY PUNCH. But milf and pre-teen are not actually characters. And the trajectory of donkey punch or dirty Sanchez does not simulate a traditional narrative arc (of the Freytag pyramid variety) (though Aristotle might disagree, I don’t know, he was a real pervert).

Kaboom director Gregg Araki is looking for that fleshy material that encapsulates the titillation of a sexual act. You know – the material that has brought the actors together. Maybe a woman is showering when the bug exterminator arrives and needs to spray. And her bath robe is at the cleaners. And the bug exterminator has a penile condition where if he doesn’t orgasm when he gets aroused, his boner swells and it explodes. What – you think that woman isn’t going to F him? You think she is just going to let his boner explode? No – they go at it.

Araki takes that substance around the titillating act and cultivates it. Elongates the terror, the fear, the excitement. Teaches it some new tricks. There are super powers. There are cults and conspiracies. There are underground resistance fighters. And there is sex in almost every major scene. Araki has made a brilliant, sprawling film out of a fascinating constraint . . . $12

One Response to Gregg Araki’s Kaboom

I was quite looking forward to this, so now that I have seen it my disappointment is even bigger!
this is a completely pointless, wit-less film. It’s un-funny, not scary, and not even the sex scenes managed to be sexy.
Very disappointing and a waste of Thomas Dekker who has actually a very interesting face and he could be rather good in a better film…
I’ll give Araki one last chance then I’ll begin to think that “Mysterious Skin” was just a lucky mistake in an otherwise disastrous filmography.